ARLC Chairman Peter V’landys has made the stunning claim the NRL should never have shut down despite revealing the game nearly lost six clubs during the COVID-19 crisis. FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

Speaking exclusively on a News Corp roundtable of sporting executives, including Collingwood President Eddie McGuire, V’landys admits his greatest regret of the entire COVID-19 saga was stopping the competition.

If the fearless troubleshooter V’landys could go back in time, he would defy world sports’ global shut down, and simply let rugby league power through it in the same way the other business he is in charge of – horse racing – has done.

“Racing has proven that you can continue on and if I had my time again, quite frankly, we wouldn’t have stopped the rugby league,” said V’landys.

“I don’t think we were any risk playing on. If we had implemented the biosecurity measures we have in place now … there was really zero risk to the players or the community.

“There was the challenges in relation to the closure of the borders, but I think we could have go around all that. If there is one regret, maybe we acted too quickly.

“Maybe we should have waited another week to see the infection rates.”